backup routing network

We have 2 locations, A and BAt location A we have an 5308XLAt Location B we have an 2626

The 2 locations are connected through an Laserlink 100MBit and as backup an wireless bridge 24 Mbit.

To be able to route between these 2 locationswe will make 2 routingnetworks10.100.0.0/24 (Laser) and10.100.1.0/24 (wireless bridge)

We only have static routes because the 2626 dont have Routing Protocols like OSPF or RIP

WE want the 10.100.0.0 the primary routingnet and the 10.100.1.0 the backup routing net, so when the laser fails, (possible because of Fog)we switch over to the routingnet 10.100.1.0 with the wireless Bridge

But the 5308 XL and the 2626 dont support metrics for static routes.How can i do that ???

Re: backup routing network

As you're already aware the 2626 doesn't support RIP or OSPF to which you can assign a path cost / metric. Because of this and the limitations with static routes, I don't think you'll have any luck with layer 3 protocols.

What I'm hoping you may be able to do instead is just use spanning-tree, to which you can definitely assign a path cost or priority if required.

Re: backup routing network

That's a good question and something that I don't have that much experience with (OSPF). Looking through the manual, I'm guessing that the OSPF hello interval would need to be set the lowest value of 1 second. The dead interval would also need to be decreased (4?).

In this type of setup where the link is most likely to be lost between the wireless devices, the switches themselves are going to keep the physical link up to it's end of the wireless device, that's why I think the hello interval would be important in this situation. You're relying on a layer 3 failover.

If the actual port on the 5300xl went down, then it would be much more immediate and could probably failover quicker (layer 2).

As I mentioned I am guessing here, but it is something I'd like to test out myself in the near future.

What I would do to test is put a 5300xl on each end, and in between I'll put 4 switches, 2 for each VLAN. I will then test failover by pulling the link between the middle two switches, and once again by pulling the link that goes directly into a 5300xl.

Cisco support Fast Hello's which look like they'd be helpful for your setup: